Because this Katsushika Hokusai The Great Wave Art Project is very visually-oriented, it is excellent for kids who are eager to explore and experiment with color.  I personally teach this unit as part of my second grade curriculum, but it can be engaging for students at any age.

Read on to learn more and request your free copy of this unit to try with your little artists!

Famous Artist Series from Kids Art Projects 101

The Hokusai Unit is part of the Famous Artist Series. This approach is awesome because it layers art history connections with guided instruction about the elements of art and principles of design. The scripted PowerPoint format can be easily utilized in a variety of settings.

Members can also access a short training video for each unit. In this video I share specific tips and considerations to help you implement the unit with ease. Whether you are a veteran art teacher or someone who is brand new to teaching art, this quick videos are packed with helpful tips to set you up for success.

Watch this sample video, or read the transcript below if you prefer.

 

~VIDEO TRANSCRIPT~

Hi Everyone! I am so excited to present to you our twenty-first installation in our famous artist series. This one is all about the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. The purpose of this video is to give you an overview of how I’ve set up the unit so that once you start with your kiddos, you can hit the ground running. So let’s dive right in.

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI ART PROJECT SESSION 1

This is organized into four distinct sessions, ideally 40 minutes each. If you need to adapt that to work for your setting you should be able to.

Hokusai Digital Storybook

In the first session, you are going to be presenting a digital storybook. It presents several pieces by Hokusai and gives kids a sense of his interest in Mount Fuji in Japan and how The Great Wave was part of a series of images he made about Mount Fuji. If they’re lucky, they’ve had some experience with the ocean and get a thrill thinking about big waves, so this project really lends itself to the natural interest of kids.

Start the Studio Project

After the digital storybook, you’re just going to have them sketch out their own great wave. If you have any watercolor paper, use that. If not, you can use construction paper, copy paper, or anything thick enough not to buckle under watercolor paints.

In session one, they’re working with pencil on paper, with a tutorial that walks them through how to achieve depth in their art. You’re going to walk them through how to create one particular wave with a little more substance than all the others, and show them how to use directional lines to reinforce the idea that this water has movement. They’re going to work really lightly with their pencils so they can revise or customize it and give it their own personal flair.

I didn’t build in an early finisher activity for Session One because I never have kids that have extra time at the end of that session. If you do have some early finishers, there are early finishers suggestions at the end of Sessions Two and Three in this unit that you could use. You could also have them proceed to the studio part of Session Two on that first day if time permitted, but that will take you to the end of Session One.

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI ART PROJECT SESSION 2

A Look at Warm Skies

In Session Two, you’re ready to start watercolor painting! You’re going to have them focus specifically on warm colors, and you’ll show a couple of photographs of Mount Fuji with a warm-colored sky.

Hokusai’s picture doesn’t show a vivid sky, but we’re going to aim for really vivid warm-colored skies. Because it’s a deviation from the original piece, you can tell them it’s part of a color study to focus on getting familiar with warm colors.

Continue the Studio Project

I tend to have them work with a 16-color Crayola watercolor set, so I show a photograph of this palette in the slideshow where I circle the warm colors. I have them start with yellow exclusively, and paint the entire sky yellow. Then, once they painted it all yellow, we start to build in oranges and reds. That keeps that color vivid and keeps your yellow from getting really tainted with oranges and red in the palette.

Now, if they want to treat that differently, they could feel free. I found that if I only put up one visual example, they all want to copy that one, so I put a ton of visual examples so they can pick whichever they we want. The cool news is that because the colors look good together, they really can’t go wrong no matter what they do! It always looks like a big fiery sky, whichever one they use and it looks beautiful. If you have an early finisher, you could move ahead in the slideshow to Session Three and have them start working on the water.

Early Finisher Suggestion

I also put another early finisher suggestion in, and it is an episode on YouTube of Maddie and Dada that focuses on Hokusai. It’s a cute animated series where the two characters go around and meet famous artists. This one reviews some of the stuff the digital story had, but it adds even more. You’re not going to have a ton of time for extra stuff, but it gives kids some focused quiet time to finish if they need it, while the other kids get out of the way and have something else to focus on.

That’s the end of Session Two!

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI ART PROJECT SESSION 3

Quick Fun Facts

Fun fact about the music composer Claude Debussy: He wrote a classical music composition called La Mer, and it was supposedly inspired by The Great Wave by Hokusai!

I put a link in there if you want to have kids listen to that. The music itself is very intense (if you haven’t heard it, give it a listen), so I recommend only playing a little bit for them and letting them react, but then turning it off and putting some calming music on while they paint the water.

Continue the Studio Project

In Session Three you’re going to have them focusing on the water. They’re going to be using cool colors for this part, so you’ll take out the same palette from session two and focus on the cool colors. Blues, greens, purples, and anything in between.

I suggest you have them do one clean application of one of light blue as a base, just to get coverage throughout the whole ocean except the white cap section. After they get that one kind of clean coverage on, they’re going to then take those other cool colors and start to redefine. They’ll be able to see the pencil lines through the water so they’re going to redefine that movement in the water by layering some other cool colors on there.

Early Finisher Suggestion

As an early finisher activity, I linked a storybook called The Great Wave inspired by The Great Wave. You can play it on YouTube, and you can move around to help kids with clean up or give one-on-one attention to someone who needs it while early finishers go over and listen to the story.

That’s it for the Session Three Studio Component. The colors and styling take a while to complete, so that is the goal for Session Three!

KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI ART PROJECT SESSION 4

Quick Fun Facts

To begin Session Four, you’re going to have them look at two quick fun facts.

1. Hokusai changed his name 30 times
2. It’s not a painting, it is a wood block

The signature on The Great Wave itself he signed From the Brush of Hokusai. Hokusai was already not his birth name, and when he signed From the Brush of Hokusai he was already changing his name to Litzu.

Next to where he’s signed his work, there is another message that is translated as This is part of the Mount Fuji series. Even though this was his first work int the series, he knew that this was the beginning of a big undertaking for him. He ultimately created a total of 36 views of Mount Fuji!

Finish the Studio Project

You’re going to present that and then give kids a Sharpie Marker and have them write their own name vertically and then draw a little box around it. The biggest challenge with that is getting them not to write it too large. Encourage them to be a little humble.

Then they’re going to use their Sharpie to define the space in their painting. The nature of watercolors is that they blend out a little bit, and if you add the Sharpie you can redefine the movement and depth in that space.

Art Show

Once you get done with the pictures you’re going to move on to the Unit Review. I’ve set up a couple of review questions in the resource that you can use, and I’ve also put some blank templates in there if you want to customize it.

Then after the review, there is an art show.

Have the kids spread out all their work, and sit or stand in a big circle around them and just sit and talk and engage them into the discussion; giving each other positive feedback, asking each other questions, sharing what they worked on, sharing their own ideas, talking about it.

These are all important skills in the art process. I put in some prompts you can use, and you can customize your own. If you have a chatty group you can have that conversation flow organically.

Self-Assessment

After the art show there is a self-assessment, if you’re up for that. It is printable, but you can also just display this digitally and talk kids through these.

I sketched a drawing of the ocean.

I included a big wave.

When I drew this did I understand what I was going for here?

I painted with warm and cool colors.

Do you like what happened? Do you wish you could have handled something differently? You’re getting them to just be reflective thinkers about how they handled the color.

My art shows depth and movement.

The wave is close, the volcano is far away.

Did I achieve the depth? Did I achieve movement? Those were some of my initial goals on this.

How did it play out?

I used my materials carefully and tried my best on this project.

There’s also a spot for Teacher comments. If you are displaying this digitally, consider making a point to give verbal feedback to each kid as they’re walking out or just looking over their shoulder. Just something quick so that they hear from you specifically about what they came up with in this project.

That is officially it! I hope that you have fun with this one and if you have any questions, of course, let me know.

If you’re willing to share photos or any details about how things play out for you with this one, I would love to hear from you. I hope that you learned something new with this one and have fun!

More About the Katsushika Hokusai Art Unit

Introduce children to famous artworks and details about Hokusai in this series of four elementary art lessons. Use the done-for-you digital storybook to look at the works of this famous artist and introduce students to a brief history of Hokusai and seascapes. Then use the digital presentation with step-by-step art project directions to guide young artists as they create a watercolor seascape with warm and cool colors inspired by Hokusai’s The Great Wave.

Inside the unit you’ll find a 22-page PDF unit guide full of information and tips for teaching this series of art lessons to students in preschool through grade 2.

The unit is broken down into four 40-minute sessions.

✨You don’t need a lot of background knowledge of the artist or art curriculum, and you don’t have to do any extra research to teach these art lessons. I’ve included all the details here for you to open and go. Think of how much time you’ll save on planning!

For each session there is a guided digital presentation that has already been prepared for you and can be used via Google Slides or PowerPoint. The presentation also introduces and guides you through completion of a studio project and follow-up activity.

The 122-page combined PDF and Google Slides full resource includes:

• An original digital storybook designed to expose students to famous artworks and details about Katsushika Hokusai
• A step-by-step studio project guide with clear directions, supply lists, and work sample photos
• Quick fun facts
• A relevant classical music listening prompt
• A digital lesson review
• An art show prompt with guided questions
• A printable self-assessment
• Early finisher related video and read-aloud suggestions
• Blank slide templates

Get Your Free Copy of the Hokusai Unit